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St. Thomas, Ontario and beyond

Does Navistar expect to take work out of Chatham and have Canadians continue to purchase its trucks?

Talk about a Mexican stand-off — The CAW wants the Navistar plant in Chatham back up and running, with its members back on the assembly line in numbers; the municipality wants the plant operational, even if it’s not pumping out trucks; and the company wants to run a pared-down operation with one-20th of the workforce that once worked there.

Through it all, 5,000 heavy-duty trucks recently ordered by J.B. Hunt Transportation Services Inc. will likely be built in Mexico because the Chatham facility is idled.

Talk about a mess.

About 150 people marched through Chatham Monday and into council chambers to seek help from council. They want to see pressure on the provincial and federal governments to get involved to help entice Navistar get the plant running again, and give people their jobs back.

Council will let the senior governments, as well as the company and the union, know how important it is for Chatham-Kent to have the truck plant operational once more. Full story